Tahoe’s Concourse d’Elegance on Father’s Day weekend

NOW IN ITS 38TH YEAR, LAKE TAHOE’S Concours d’Elegance is the nation’s most prestigious wooden boat show.

The Concours is an ideal getaway for Father’s Day weekend, where families get an up-close view of more than 80 beautifully and meticulously restored wooden boats. Each one is a work of art.

The June 18-20 show is at the Sierra Boat Company in Carnelian Bay. The VIP preview day on Friday, June 18, (a favorite FoodWineArt event) includes a catered lunch, wine and champagne, live jazz music and vintage wooden boat rides. It is a classic “old Tahoe” experience.

For the first time, this year’s Concours also features vintage fiberglass boats. The “woodies” will still dominate the show, but the new class of boats will showcase classic fiberglass boat restoration.

“You’ll see fiberglass boats from the ’40s to the ’60s—with a lot of color and wild interiors,” says Dave Olson, event chair and president of the Tahoe Yacht Club Foundation. “Along with that, we still have the wooden boats, from launches to the race boats.”

Some boats to check out include the historic Thunderbird, a 1939, 55-foot wood cruiser. A big lodge was built to go with it. The wooden boats, costing from $20,000 to $200,000 each, date back to the ’20s and still ply Tahoe’s crystal-clear waters on bright summer days.

The area’s extremely low humidity helps keep the boats well preserved.

Traveling across Lake Tahoe in a 33-foot, triple-cockpit Gar Wood runabout from the ’30s is akin to riding a limo. The big green cushions soften your ride. “You can’t help but reflect what it must have been like back then,” says Olson.

(photo credit: h2omark.com)